City Council Member makes $800K per year

How a city manager of a small, poor CA town made $787K

Not a good year for Bell city manager Robert Rizzo. In March, he was arrested

on suspicion of drunken driving. Last week, the Times reported he makes $787K a year. (Courtesy of AP)

The number defies logic. Yet there it is, in the LA Times, for all the world to see: 787,637. That's the annual salary for Robert Rizzo. He's not a lawyer or a corporate exec. According to a the Times, he's the city administrator for Bell, one of the poorest towns in Los Angeles County (map).

Rizzo isn't the only one with a big fat paycheck. Two other Bell employees are pulling in astronomical incomes. Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia makes $376,288 and Police Chief Randy Adams makes $457,000.

To put things in perspective, the Times listed the annual salaries of other public servants who have to run bigger places like Los Angeles, California and, oh, the United States. Here's a rundown of salaries:

Bell Chief Administrative officer Robert Rizzo: $787,637
-- Los Angeles City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana: $256,803
-- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: $173,987 (Schwarzenegger has declined to take his salary)
-- President Barack Obama: $400,000

Bell Police Chief Randy Adams, $457,000
(Oversees a department with 46 personnel; 33 are sworn officers)
-- Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck $307,000
(Oversees 12,899 personnel; 9,959 are sworn officers)

Bell resident Eddie Delgado, 16, shows off his "corruption" tee. (Courtesy of AP)

If these figures aren't enough to make you choke on your Cheerios this morning, Rizzo's response might. In response to the scandal, Rizzo, who received his bachelor's from UC Berkeley and his master's from Cal State East Bay, told the Times:

"If that's a number people choke on, maybe I'm in the wrong business. I could go into private business and make that money. This council has compensated me for the job I've done."

The City Council has compensated themselves well, too, thanks to a ballot initiative. In 2005, California approved a law that placed salary caps for council members in "general law cities." That same year, Bell leaders approved a special election (which, by the way, cost $40,000 to $60,000) with one ballot item that would give Bell charter status, according to today's Time story. The measure passed, allowing council members to earn huge wages for serving on boards and commissions. Council members make $7,873.25 each month -- for part-time work. They also approved a contract that gave Rizzo an annual raise of 12%.

The rise of Rizzo's salary.
1993: $72,000
2004: 300,000
2005: $442,000
Current: $787,637

The fallout has been swift and fierce. Since the story ran last week, the county D.A.'s office and the state are opening investigations, while Rizzo, Spaccia and Adams are quitting. And while they won't get severance packages, Rizzo is entitled to a state pension of $650,000 a year for life.

Cue the choking.

Banks Paid $1.6 Billion in bonuses while recieving tarp money

Bankers overpaid by $1.6bn

By Justin Baer in New York

Published: July 23 2010 19:47 | Last updated: July 23 2010 19:47

Citigroup, Bank of America and 15 other bailed-out financial services companies overpaid their top executives by $1.6bn during the height of the financial ­crisis, according to a review by the White House’s ­special master on Wall Street compensation.

Kenneth Feinberg, who was appointed last year by Barack Obama, president, to oversee the pay policies at the companies that received the greatest government support, began in March his latest inquiry into top executives’ compensation from late 2008 to early 2009.

While the payments were legal at the time, Mr Feinberg said on Friday, they would have fallen foul of restrictions the government set for participants in its troubled asset relief programme (Tarp).

Citi topped the list on excessive pay, thanks in large part to the compensation of several star employees at the bank’s Phibro commodities trading unit, people familiar with the matter said. Citi sold the business to Occidental Petroleum last year.

“Getting our compensation structure right is a priority for us,” a Citi spokeswoman said. “Since the crisis, we have done a lot of work to make sure it is performance-based and we look forward to reviewing the special master’s recommendations.”

The other companies cited by the special master were: American Express, American International Group, Boston Private Financial Holdings, Capital One Financial, CIT Group, JPMorgan Chase. M&T Bank, Morgan Stanley, Regions Financial, SunTrust Banks, Bank of New York Mellon, Goldman Sachs, PNC Financial Services Group, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo.

While Mr Feinberg no longer had the authority to police compensation at those that had paid back the government’s investment, he used a “look back” provision in the statute to ask for more information about their pay during a window between the start of the Tarp and when new restrictions on executive pay took effect.

Mr Feinberg reviewed what the 419 companies that received government assistance before February 2009 had paid their top 25 executives. The institutions were required to submit details on employees who earned more than $500,000.

Eleven of the 17 companies cited by the special master have repaid the government for its assistance during the crisis. And, while Mr Feinberg conceded that none of the retention awards, bonuses, golden parachutes and other payments that appear excessive today was “contrary to the public interest”, he proposed the companies adopt a new policy that would supersede pay guarantees granted to executives.

Mr Feinberg implored companies to give their boards’ compensation committees the right to restructure, reduce or cancel payments to executives during times of crisis.

In October, he had moved to slash the 2009 cash compensation of the top executives at the seven companies within his jurisdiction by an average of 90 per cent from a year earlier.

In December, Mr Feinberg took aim at a second tier of managers, setting a $500,000 salary limit for hundreds of employees at the companies that were still under his thumb. The White House last month appointed Mr Feinberg as administrator of BP’s fund to pay claims from the oil company’s devastating spill. He will leave his current post as “pay tsar” in August.

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